Panel Issues Manifesto on Reform

An independent, ad hoc group of 27 educators, policymakers, and
scholars released a manifesto last week intended to sustain and
redirect the education-reform movement. (See Education Week, Oct. 24,
1984.)

Developed under the leadership of Edward A. Wynne and Herbert J.
Walberg, professors of education at the University of Illinois at
Chicago, the statement asserts that educators must pay greater
attention to "the critical issue" of student character development.

"Apart from the family, the school is the fundamental institution
where our children learn to be human and acquire the unique values of
our democratic society," said Urie Bronfenbrenner, professor of human
development and family studies at Cornell University, in a statement
accompanying the release of the manifesto.

"The evidence indicates that schools are now doing a poor job of
transmitting such skills and values to our children," he also said.

The 40-page statement discusses eight other "education problem
areas," ranging from the teaching profession to parental choice in
schooling, and includes 55 recommendations, such as the availability of
community-service projects for students, tax credits for the parents of
private-school students, and wider use of master teachers in the
selection of textbooks.

Half Signed

Approximately one-half of those asked to review the statement signed
it, including Nathan Glazer, co-editor of The Public Interest, Stanley
M. Elam, contributing editor of Phi Delta Kappan, Paul De Hart Hurd,
professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, James Q.
Wilson, professor of government at Harvard University, and Michael
Novak, director of the religion and public-policy project of the
American Enterprise Institute.--tt

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